potty training?

(Warning: for those squeamish readers out there, the contents of this blog have not been censored and may contain material unsuitable for sensitive souls. But that bit isn't until the end--the first part should be okay.)

Tonight, as I was putting Andrew down to bed, he very nearly made me laugh out loud with his charming rendition of "I am a child of God." As I was singing to him, he chimed in, matching me nearly word-for-word (although some of his words weren't quite intelligible, due to the pacifier in his mouth), in an endearing little monotone that he clearly thinks counts for singing. It was pretty funny to hear.

This week has been a quiet one, which I suppose is a good thing considering the last couple of weeks. We did have a little bit of a mishap on Monday: I decided that Andrew's big Christmas present this year is going to be a little kitchen set--they had one on sale at Walmart, and it was actually in stock when we went to the store. So, like the dedicated mom that I am, I immediately put the box in our cart (more accurately *on* our cart, since it wouldn't really fit in it. That probably should have been my first clue that this wasn't a good idea). Since this was the first thing we picked up in the store, it made fitting grocery items into the cart a little precarious, but we managed. It wasn't until we got out to the car that I realized we had a problem: there was no way that box was going to fit through any of the doors, or in the trunk. So I had to call my mom and have her come pick up the box in her roomier Prius before we could go home. Andrew, in the meantime, was surprisingly placid about the whole thing. (Probably because he was busy stuffing himself with Teddy Grahams).



Nothing much happened in the middle of the week, so we won't waste your time by pretending something did and trying to describe it. (I suppose it might be worth noting that for the first three days of this week, Andrew took a 3+ hour nap, which was little short of miraculous given his track record). On Thursday, I finally caved into Andrew's relentless pleas that he "go to Jacob's house" (because of his illness and his cousins' subsequent illnesses, he hadn't seen them for over a week): we had lunch with Jeni, Emi, and Enoch (Jacob was at Joy School), before picking Jacob up and heading to the store for a brief outing.

On Friday, the gathering of grandchildren continued: my mom was sitting for my brother Jared's kids during the morning, and Jeni brought her kids over to play with them. Which meant that we had six of the eight grandchildren collected more or less in one room (although not usually all at the same time, unfortunately). It was pretty chaotic, but they had a lot of fun. At one point the three oldest boys, Jacob (4), Joshua (3), and Andrew (almost 2) sat around the kitchen table eating crackers and giggling hysterically (for a full five minutes) about something that probably would only make sense to a little boy (I think it had something to do with Andrew trying to eat the wax off some cheese, but I'm not sure. I'm not even sure Joshua and Andrew knew what was so funny). Anyway, it was fun to see them enjoying each other so much. That night, Jeni returned again with her brood while she and Samuel went to the temple. The kids picked at their dinner but then had a thrilling time jumping around the living room like maniacs and playing their own version of "ring around the rosie" (which mostly just involved falling down). Not surprisingly, after this strenuous day, Andrew was pretty compliant about going to bed.



We didn't go anywhere on Saturday, for the simple expedient that it snowed all day--possibly even more snow than last weekend. We entertained Andrew by letting him "help" prepare the chicken pot pie that served as dinner, and then I took him outside to "help" me shovel the walk. After abandoning a real snow shovel as too big, Andrew discovered that a dustpan would work just as well (although he spent most of his time digging a hole in a snow pile and dumping snow over spots I'd already cleared). He finally abandoned that too, in favor of my mom's garden diggers. (I think he lost one, too, but my mom consoled me that we would find it when the snow melts). It was nice to stay home for a change and just hang out with the family.

Jeni and Samuel brought their family over again this evening, for an early celebration of Samuel's birthday. My parents made sukiyaki (a kind of Japanese hot pot dish) which everyone thoroughly enjoyed, although Emi, at least, clearly preferred the cake. (Jeni called her a little Marie Antoinette, because of her insistence that we "eat cake").

And for the big news of the week (reflected in the title of our blog), Andrew seems to have decided that it's time to start potty-training. For the last several days, he's been pestering us all multiple times daily that he "needs to go potty." Mostly, this involves him sitting on the potty while nothing happens. But things slowly seem to be changing--in the last week, he has managed to successfully use the toilet five times--three times today! We're pleased that he seems to have taken the initiative in this, although I have to admit I rather dread the whole process (and I'm sure the "I need to go potty" thing will pall considerably when I have to deal with it twenty times a day). Dan took a picture of one of his successful attempts, but we thought we'd at least spare our readers' sensibilities that sight.